The Problem With Polls
Michael Barone has a column up over at Real Clear Politics that points out the difficulties of polls and polling. It also points out some weird anomalies this year that are highly unusual – to the point of straining belief.
In 2004, the electorate that went to the polls or voted absentee was, according to the adjusted NEP exit poll, 37 percent Democratic and 37 percent Republican. In party identification, it was the most Republican electorate since George Gallup conducted his first random sample poll in October 1935.
But most recent national polls show Democrats with an advantage in party identification in the vicinity of 5 percent to 12 percent. Party identification usually changes slowly. Historically, voters have switched from candidates of one party to candidates of the other more readily than they have changed their party identification.
Over time, big changes in party ID can and do occur. When I started in the polling business, in 1974, national party identification was almost 50 percent Democratic and not much more than 25 percent Republican.
Since then, Democratic party ID has fallen, particularly in the South, where many voters who considered themselves Democrats found themselves voting Republican for president and, increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s, for other offices, as well.
Republican party ID has increased. But that's a process that took decades. If you could go back in history and conduct polls, I don't think you'd find any, and certainly not many, two-year periods when the balance in party identification shifted from even to having one party 12 percent ahead of the other.
There is quite a lot more, so go over and read it. Myself and quite a few others have repeatedly pointed out what we see as badly skewed samples in a lot of the polls. Barone correctly points out that massive shifts normally take quite a few years, not less than two. So who's right?
We'll know in eight days or so, won't we?
By Former Republican, October 30, 2006 @ 8:52 am
The apparent shift in party identificaiton is certainly odd, but remember, we have had an extraordinary President and Congress, taking extrordinary actions. These actions may have caused extraordinary shifts. I may have some insight into this, as I am one of the ones shifted.
By crosspatch, October 30, 2006 @ 10:54 am
Texas has had an amazing hemmorage of Democratic voter identification but most of those seem to have gone independent and not switched to Republican. Independent voters statewide outnumber Democrats or Republicans.
Here is an interesting graphic:
http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/part/features/0702_01/PID.jpg
from:
http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/part/0702.html
That Texas Politics site at utexas is an interesting one. Texas has a lot of electoral votes, voters tend to be fickle there and not vote along party lines.